Charles Dickens.]

"SLOPED FOR TEXAS."

163

Meanwhile, one passing observation may
be made. The change from school to college,
from the restraints of boyhood to the liberty
of the full-grown man is, as matters now
stand, surely too marked and rapid. I remem-
ber in my own case—but that is many years
ago it is true—that I was flogged for not
saying my lessons, not many weeks before I
came up to College, and that the transition
from toffey to mulled claret was immediate,
and almost imperceptible. The period, too,
which those who are not intending to read
for Honours are required to stop there, seems
to me too long. Most of them could, in their
first Term, pass satisfactorily, and with perfect
ease, the rudimentary examination which
they have ultimately to go through, in order
to obtain the Bachelor of Arts degree. For
these, two years (according to the suggestion
of the present tutor of Trinity Hall) would be
amply sufficient. And in that case, matters
might be so arranged, that the young man
should take his degree as nearly as possible
at the period of his coming of age. But I
have said enough. As my old tutor used to
remark to me—poor man! he lived to such
an extreme age in single blessedness, that
there are now none left to weep over him but
the marble cherubim which the executors
caused to be carved out, and, I believe, never
paid for—as my old tutor used to say, " Wait
till you are yourself a Fellow, before you
talk of University reform." So that it is of
the Fellows that you must ask whether the
Fellows have not too little work to do. Wait
till you are a Fellow yourself, before you pre-
sume to say whether the Fellows must be
made to reside in Cambridge. Meanwhile
you and I, reader, are not to have an opinion
about the matter.

By this time the train was stopping. The
town of Yarmouth was in sight, and I stepped
out to exchange the dream of by-gone days,
and the thick-coming fancies of the mind, for
the realities of homely, plodding, every-day
life.

CHIPS.

"SLOPED FOR TEXAS."

THIS is an answer given in some of the
States of America when a gentleman has
decamped from his wife, from his creditors,
or from any other responsibility which he
finds it troublesome to meet or to support.
Among the curious instances of the appli-
cation of this phrase is an adventure which
happened to myself.

It is the boast of the bloods of the State of
Rackinsack, in Arkansas, that they are born
with skins like alligators, and with strength
like bears. They work hard, and they play
hard. Gaming is the recreation most indulged
in, and the gaming-houses of the western
part of Arkansas have branded it with an
unenviable notoriety.

One dark summer night, I lounged, as a
mere spectator, the different rooms, watching
the various games of hazard that were being
played. Some of the players seemed to have
set their very souls upon the stakes: their
eyes were bloodshot, and fixed, from beneath
their wrinkled brows, on the table, as if their
everlasting weal or woe depended there upon
the turning of the dice; whilst others—the
finished blacklegs—assumed an indifferent
and careless look, though a kind of sardonic
smile playing round their lips, but too plainly
revealed a sort of habitual desperation. Three
of the players looked the very counterparts of
each other, not only in face, but expression;
both the physical and moral likeness was
indeed striking. The other player was a
young man, a stranger, whom they call a
"green one," in this and many other parts
of the world. His eyes, his nose, his whole
physiognomy, seemed to project, and to be
capable of growing even still longer.

"Fifty dollars more," he exclaimed, with a
deep-drawn breath, as he threw down the
stake.

Each of his opponents turned up his cards
coolly and confidently; but the long-visaged
hero laid his stake before them, and, to the
astonishment of the three professionals, won.

"Hurrah! the luck has turned, and I
crow ? " he cried out in an ecstasy, and
pocketed the cash.

The worthy trio smiled at this, and recom-
menced play. The green young man displayed
a broad but silent grin at his good fortune,
and often took out his money to count it over,
and see if each piece was good.

"Here are a hundred dollars more," cried
the sylvan youth, " and I crow."

"I take them," said one of the trio. The
youth won again, and " crowed " louder this
time than he did the first.

On went the game; stakes were lost and
won. Gradually the rouleaus of the "crower"
dwindled down to a three or four of dollars,
or so. It was clear that the gentlemen in
black had been luring him on by that best of
decoys, success at first.

"Let me see something for my money.
Here's a stake of two dollars, and I crow!"
But he spoke now in a very faint treble indeed,
and looked penitently at the cards.

Again the cards were shuffled, cut, and
dealt, and the " plucked pigeon " staked his
last dollar upon them.

"The last button on Gabe's coat, and I
cr—cr—; no, I 'll be hamstrung if I do!"

He lost this too, and, with as deep a curse
as I ever heard, he rose from the green board.

The apartment was very spacious, and on
the ground floor. There was only this one
gaming table in it, and not many lookers-on
besides myself. Thinking the gaming was
over, I turned to go out, but found the door
locked, and the key gone. There was evi-
dently something in the wind. At all events,
I reflected, in case of need, the windows are
not very far to the ground. I returned, and